Post by Pops on Feb 15, 2013 12:00:07 GMT -5

One of the things I hear a lot is how something changed someone's life. It's often overused or used as hyperbole when referring to music as the catalyst - but sometimes something related to music really can change a person's life. Big ways or small ways, a certain album purchase, or concert, or festival can actually do that. I have several examples, but I'll kick off with the most recent one:

In my much younger days, I wrote. A lot. Poems, short stories, novellas, songs. I had folders and notebooks filled with my writing. This was before hard drives and backup disks - it was all on paper. When I moved back to DC from New Orleans, all my writing was locked in my trunk while I was looking for a place to live - well, the car got stolen and when the cops found it, there were the remnants of a bonfire next to it. Whoever stole the car had burned all my writing and books, and everything else I owned basically. I was so depressed that I stopped writing altogether, unless it was for school or work, or for Mrs. G personally. I never wrote another thing for fun for 20 years - until 5 months ago when Zapp asked me if I'd be interested in writing a review. I spent almost a month writing the first review for him, it was actually physically painful at times. Then, it all started coming back in a flood - why I liked to write, creative energy, excitement - Mrs. G even noticed it. Well since then, I've been writing poems again, a few songs, a short story, and lots more stuff for Tactile Tracks. I actually feel like Zapp's invitation and writing about music really did change my life.

Post by lukescrazyarms on Feb 15, 2013 13:55:12 GMT -5

My mom took me to see the Dave Matthews Band when I was 8 years old. I started playing drums about a week after that show. Over the next couple of years my entire family went from a white picket fence dream to the most absolute shit show of broken dreams and promises. I basically raised myself since the time I was 14. High school and every normal problem that kids had turned into where am I going to live tonight or how am I going to eat tomorrow. The whole time when everybody else was playing football or going to school dances, I was the kid sitting in the corners with a drum pad, a CD player, and a broken pair of drumsticks just trying to get better and better. I played my first show when I was 13. I don't think I've stopped playing shows since then. I feel like throughout all the BS I went through, and how everything that was "permanent" seemed to be washing away, my music and my drums were the only things that ever remained there the entire time. There was always a song for the mood I was feeling and whenever I wanted to beat the living hell out of someone or just break down and cry I went and sat behind my kit and all my emotions disappeared even if it was for only those couple of hours. Its my only escape from the real life.

Fast forward 10 years. I'm now 20 years old and I manage a music store which I'm pretty sure I'm going to own one day. I live on my own and completely support myself by playing, teaching, and selling music. It's a dream come true in a way. The best way to look back and give a big middle finger to anyone that ever said you won't be able to make music for a living. I'm better off then most of my friends and still have money for things like Bonnaroo and other wonderful adventures. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Music was that thing that made me stronger every single day and continues to do so even today.

Post by A$AP Rosko on Feb 15, 2013 14:34:26 GMT -5

You are a beautiful man, Tom. I can't imagine getting your car back and seeing all that you've written all those years just completely gone. That makes me want to cry. I'm glad you've rediscovered it recently.

Post by jeffp1717 on Feb 18, 2013 17:14:22 GMT -5

Wow, Tom. I had no idea. That was beautiful to read and I got teary-eyed doing so. I'm so happy to have played a role in helping you rediscover a passion like that; it truly makes all the hard work completely worth it in a way that I really never thought was possible. I feel awful for the lost work that you had put in--such a devastating thing to have happen, and really shows me the things I take for granted that can just be gone like that.

Post by FatKeystone on Feb 18, 2013 17:20:10 GMT -5

My mom took me to see the Dave Matthews Band when I was 8 years old. I started playing drums about a week after that show. Over the next couple of years my entire family went from a white picket fence dream to the most absolute shiz show of broken dreams and promises. I basically raised myself since the time I was 14. High school and every normal problem that kids had turned into where am I going to live tonight or how am I going to eat tomorrow. The whole time when everybody else was playing football or going to school dances, I was the kid sitting in the corners with a drum pad, a CD player, and a broken pair of drumsticks just trying to get better and better. I played my first show when I was 13. I don't think I've stopped playing shows since then. I feel like throughout all the BS I went through, and how everything that was "permanent" seemed to be washing away, my music and my drums were the only things that ever remained there the entire time. There was always a song for the mood I was feeling and whenever I wanted to beat the living hell out of someone or just break down and cry I went and sat behind my kit and all my emotions disappeared even if it was for only those couple of hours. Its my only escape from the real life.

Fast forward 10 years. I'm now 20 years old and I manage a music store which I'm pretty sure I'm going to own one day. I live on my own and completely support myself by playing, teaching, and selling music. It's a dream come true in a way. The best way to look back and give a big middle finger to anyone that ever said you won't be able to make music for a living. I'm better off then most of my friends and still have money for things like Bonnaroo and other wonderful adventures. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Music was that thing that made me stronger every single day and continues to do so even today.

Touching story. I'm glad everything is working out for you and you get to do what you love. Also, great avatar. I've been trying to meet Carter for years and it still hasn't panned out.

Post by lukescrazyarms on Feb 18, 2013 17:47:09 GMT -5

My mom took me to see the Dave Matthews Band when I was 8 years old. I started playing drums about a week after that show. Over the next couple of years my entire family went from a white picket fence dream to the most absolute shiz show of broken dreams and promises. I basically raised myself since the time I was 14. High school and every normal problem that kids had turned into where am I going to live tonight or how am I going to eat tomorrow. The whole time when everybody else was playing football or going to school dances, I was the kid sitting in the corners with a drum pad, a CD player, and a broken pair of drumsticks just trying to get better and better. I played my first show when I was 13. I don't think I've stopped playing shows since then. I feel like throughout all the BS I went through, and how everything that was "permanent" seemed to be washing away, my music and my drums were the only things that ever remained there the entire time. There was always a song for the mood I was feeling and whenever I wanted to beat the living hell out of someone or just break down and cry I went and sat behind my kit and all my emotions disappeared even if it was for only those couple of hours. Its my only escape from the real life.

Fast forward 10 years. I'm now 20 years old and I manage a music store which I'm pretty sure I'm going to own one day. I live on my own and completely support myself by playing, teaching, and selling music. It's a dream come true in a way. The best way to look back and give a big middle finger to anyone that ever said you won't be able to make music for a living. I'm better off then most of my friends and still have money for things like Bonnaroo and other wonderful adventures. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Music was that thing that made me stronger every single day and continues to do so even today.

Touching story. I'm glad everything is working out for you and you get to do what you love. Also, great avatar. I've been trying to meet Carter for years and it still hasn't panned out.

haha thanks, Life is Good....I really enjoy what I do...and yeah I pretty much broke down in tears when I met him. He started cracking up because I was a hot mess about it. Someone actually gave me the pass to meet him because they heard my story. Def was a moment where Karma was behind my back!

Post by Jones Jupiter on Feb 18, 2013 19:33:52 GMT -5

My brother was a drummer and my Grandma and her sisters had a Christian group, so those were my earliest memories. Going to churches and different events, watching them sing and my brother who was not even 10 yet occasionally drum for them. My neighbor (an elderly man) was a country musician and had a music room. He allowed me to come and go in there as I wanted and even let me bang on the drums anytime. He would have other older guys over and they would play classic country stuff and would even let me sit in with them every now and then, though I couldn't keep a beat or know which drum to hit next to save my life.

My parents got divorced when I was around 10 and we moved in with my uncle for a few years who was a bass player. By that point my brother had added guitar to his repertoire. I was surrounded by instruments but I first picked up my uncles bass, simply mimicking him. He would occasionally teach me a scale or a simple jazz run and that's all it took. From then on, I traded all of my toys for a cheap red, Mexican fender precision. I don't think I sat that thing down all summer. One of the most important things about that stay was also the fact that my uncle began introducing me to the classic stuff he'd grown up playing, Hendrix, Floyd, and most importantly, The Beatles. Me and him would sit around and we'd mostly listen to Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Peppers. Three bass lines in particular he taught me that have always stuck with me: "Hello, Goodbye", the Popeye theme song, and the classical piece "Hall of the Mountain King". I still feel compelled to play them nearly every time I pick up a bass. He took me to my first concert too, Steve Miller and Gov't Mule. Years later I returned the favor by taking him to see Roger Waters The Wall. Great night!

Once my brother was in high school he started joining little bands here and there and luckily no one played bass so they'd always ask me to play. Shortly after my cousin bought a guitar so we would all jam daily. My cousin started writing songs and this kind of inspired me to do the same. So I picked up my brother's old guitar, which had become dusty by that point (it never was really his thing) and I started teaching myself different songs and eventually began writing my own music. By the time I was a senior, I had started a band with my brother and would play all of the local clubs in Dallas and Austin (often with only my Dad in the crowd lol). We even got some radio time for one of our tracks. But of course life happened and that didn't last (though performing and recording with my brother is still my favorite musical memory). He had a kid and was done with it.

I went on to play with two different country acts for about 4 years and finally made a living off music alone. I enjoyed it just because I finally felt what it's like to be a musician on the road. But I got sick of their style of music (and the egos involved) and had enough. I decided to go get my degree and went to Baylor where I received a scholarship to play bass in their jazz band. Leads me to today. I left all of the "playing in bands" behind but I still write and am still recording. I'll always record. Music has ALWAYS been a part of my life and that will never change. It's something I take very serious and truly love.

I lost my father a little over a year ago and the last time we spent time together he asked me to play for him. So I started playing and he just had this huge grin on his face the entire time. Oddly, he picked out the songs for his own funeral two weeks before we lost him. "Amazing Grace" and the rest were all mine I think back to that awful time in my life but always find comfort in those moments, sitting at his funeral listening to those songs. He was proud.

Post by Prof. Horatio Hufnagel on Feb 22, 2013 10:04:55 GMT -5

Growing up, I was an awkward and shy child. I didn't have many friends and found it quite difficult to connect with others. My parents listened to a little music (it was the eighties so I remember a lot of The Eagles, Jimmy Buffett and Phil Collins), but mostly did not. Going through adolescence and my teenage years I knew that I was supposed to be interested in pop-culture and all of the other kids were in this society where they knew what was 'cool' and were always talking about things I knew very little of or knew only as references.

I wouldn't say I was depressed, but I would say that I wasn't particularly thrilled with life and when I started getting into music it was either A. dark, or B. stuff that no-one liked or everyone had long ago abandoned (i.e. nu wave in the late nineties - I WAS that cool). Before I graduated my girlfriend took me to a Phish show (1.0 - I can say I was there!) and really opened my head up to how much fun live music could be. I then went to college and discovered the almighty mp3. For a short time in our history, literally, all music ever recorded was free and accessible. I spent nights, all night long, selecting obscure and unknown stuff on Audio Galaxy to create a new soundtrack for my life. I became friends with lots of people in college, I could relate to people with all of these new songs and sounds. I felt like I was becoming as much a student to my ear as I was to my engineering degree (which became philosophy - long story yada yada).

Towards the end of my sophomore year while I was planning on returning home to Chattanooga, lots of my new cool and heady friends were abuzz about some huge music festival that was taking place near where I lived. I didn't recognize a lot of the lineup for the first Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (except for Widespread Panic - who played at my high school and was headlining the first two nights of this festival?) but they assured me it would be a fun time. After all, I was going to be camping with 4 very pretty girls and one gay friend, so even if the music sucked I would still feel like the f-ing man (for once).

No one has ever been more right in their life.

I ended up going to Bonnaroo in 2002 and the music changed my life. The environment and the people changed my life as the music had changed theirs. I felt like we were on the cusp of something really special, and we were. For the rest of my life I am going to end up spending much of my free time researching lineups, making predictions and in general just daydreaming about those 4 magical days/nights in June every year. So yeah, my life is changed, changed for the better. I am a much more positive person who can now stand (read - dance) in the field with 80000 other weirdos and feel right at home.

Post by Black Dynamite on Feb 26, 2013 11:53:26 GMT -5

Great thread man.

When I was 18 and fresh out of high school, I got dumped by a girl I was still very in love with. She was going away to school and we tried to make it work, but we just couldn't find the time. In hindsight, I don't blame her. I was opinionated, shallow, stubborn, and too young to handle my emotions. After a full day of doing everything I could to try and win her back I sat in my basement alone and broke down. As I sat their, head in hand, I felt the urge to convey my emotions in a way I could not. The first thing that came to mind was a song. My dad was in many bands and one of his former band mates had left a guitar at our house. I scoured the house, found the guitar, and just started playing. I didn't know a single thing about the guitar or music at the time, but I knew what I was feeling. I never did win that girl back, but I found something so much more valuable. I found myself. I realized that we were two seperate souls that still needed some time to continue searching. Ever since that day, my entire way of thinking has changed drastically. Fast forward three years, and I'm still plucking away at that original Seagul S every moment that I can. When everything in the world comes crashing down around me, all that I have to do is pickup that guitar, close my eyes, and let loose. I couldn't imagine my life now without playing music. I went to school for audio production and now I practice hours a day. It was on that day that I finally understood why they call music the universal language.

Post by onion on Mar 26, 2013 8:31:23 GMT -5

Music didn't really change my life, but it sure made it more enjoyable!!

I didn't really listen to any music until I went to Roo in 08 with my brother and his friends. My ears were opened to so much music I had never heard before, as I had really only heard top 40 stuff before and that stuff didn't appeal to me. I wasn't young either (28), just oblivious. Immediately I realized there was another world out there, filled with music I not only enjoyed, but loved. Since the discovery of music that was not spoon fed to me, music has become one of the defining characteristics of my life, to the point where I am now the one introducing bands to others. I can't go anywhere, even across the street, without my headphones in.

Post by garageland on Mar 29, 2013 8:41:26 GMT -5

I had just graduated high school and taken a cross country trip with some friends to celebrate. You spend a lot of time in the car, you listen to a lot of music, it just happens. It makes those milemarkers go faster. A friend from home had given me a cassette copy of Satiate by a Richmond, VA via DC band, Avail.

I probably played that album half a million times on that trip. It kept me alive down those late-night drives. Well that and some urge to be something that I could never satisfy. Somewhere on that journey, I started a fanzine and one of the kids in the car decided that he and I should start booking bands to play in that sleepy mountain town and I knew the first band we should book. Upon return, we scrambled to find a phone number. Just like that it was done. We booked our first show.

What a doozy. No club would touch it and we ended up having to rent out a VFW hall, a PA system, and save our own money just to make sure we could pay the band. Good thing we did too. There was less than 30 people there.

What I was unaware of was how big that band would become in my life. How I traded that sleepy mountain city for the back alleys of Richmond. They shaped not my musical tastes, but how I thought things should be done. They caused me to start a record label and finding friends all over the world (before the dark days of the internet). I jumped in vans and took off (with bands I'd known for a day) for weeks at a time. It's a lifestyle that I probably wouldn't have lived if not for being obsessed with that band.

In 94' they released the album Dixie. If your from Richmond, that album tells your story.

While I absolutely hate band tattoos, I have one. If you stare closely at my arm, you can see that stick-figure.No matter where I go, what I do, that little dude takes me back home, to that time where everything was fresh, and new, and so exciting.